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5 YRS AGO - ENNIS: Dana White and Vince McMahon should learn from each other
Sep 6, 2011 - 6:52:18 PM 5 YRS AGO - ENNIS: Dana White and Vince McMahon should learn from each other

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Five years ago on MMATorch, senior columnist Shawn Ennis wrote about what Dana White and WWE's head honcho Vince McMahon could learn from one another. So, five years later, who's learned more from the other? Read Shawn's column and decide for yourself...

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Dana White has been called the Vince McMahon of UFC, and there are various reasons for the comparison. As Wade discussed in the MMATorch Mission Statement, mixed martial arts and professional wrestling are hardly the same thing, but they can be considered a sort of cousins. Right now, White is trying to build a bigger audience for the UFC, just like McMahon did with the WWF in 1980s.

On Vince's side, PPV business is going downhill at alarming rate in the U.S., while MMA is booming. So when you take away the sport aspect and look at the business and the promoting side of things, how do the two compare, and what could the big name promoters of each sport (Dana White in the UFC and Vince McMahon in WWE) learn from each other, if anything? I think there are a few things – some subtle, and some not so subtle.

STORIES

Regardless of what you think of the comparison between wrestling and MMA, when you talk about promotion, you're looking at a lot of the same things - storylines and fights. The difference, of course, being that the fights are real in MMA, and two guys don't necessarily have to have a beef with each other to go at it. This is where mixed martial arts has a decided advantage over WWE.

Vince is selling us characters. He always has. If he was selling fights, Hulk Hogan never would have been a star. White, on the other hand, can give us two people, tell us their personal stories, their internal conflicts, what motivates them, etc. Then we get to see those two guys get in the cage and fight for whatever it is that makes them want to win. It gives the viewer someone to root for. Even if both guys are likeable, there's a compelling reason to watch the fight other than to see two guys duke it out.

There's one more aspect of story as well: What happens to a guy after he loses? When you get a character in the Octagon that people can get behind, and then that person loses a fight, what happens next? How do they get on the comeback trail? What goes through a proud fighter's head when he gets pounded? Take Chris Leben, for example. The guy is known for having a granite chin, and then he was absolutely dismantled by the great (and until next month, underpromoted) Anderson Silva. What happened between then and the last UFC Fight Night that gave us the Chris Leben that we saw against Jorge Santiago? Was this a different man? How? This is just a small example of compelling storylines that write themselves for Dana White, and he just has to tell the story on TV.

Of course, the question then becomes how one goes about doing this. Well, maybe you expand UFC Unleashed to produce more unique episodes, and between fights, you show vignettes on guys participating in upcoming PPVs. If this is successful, maybe you develop a half hour show that airs weekly after The Ultimate Fighter (or maybe before, since Spike and TNA probably wouldn't go for that) that gives us updates on the state of affairs. It'd be sort of a SportsCenter for MMA, if you will. And it gives the opportunity not just to promote the big fights - you can do that on All Access and the Countdown shows, which Mike Roe so astutely pointed out in his recent article. You could promote your lightweights here, or your guys who are making their Octagon debuts. Who are they? Why should we watch them? There are so many compelling and talented fighters that go unnoticed for too long. This could be a way to expose them.

COMPETITION

Regardless of what Vince McMahon says, he doesn't want competition. If he did, he wouldn't have bought WCW. But no competition yields a stale product. Just look at WWE right now. What reason does Vince McMahon have to put on a compelling show? Why shouldn't he put himself in the main event at MSG next Monday? Are people going to flip the channel and watch another wrestling show? Or will they wait until another night to get their fix? Nope. Because the casual viewer who wants their pro wrestling fix has no other option. And that's why WWE is hemorrhaging viewers and PPV buys. Competition breeds innovation.

Dana White, from all indications, has a similar outlook. He looked to squash the IFL with a lawsuit when they got started. He tossed the owner of the WFA from a recent UFC event (perhaps with good reason, but one notices a possible trend here). With the exception of an occasional reference to PRIDE or K-1 by Joe Rogan, you never hear any other organizations named on a UFC broadcast.

You never see footage of fighters who came up in those organizations and are now fighting in the UFC (which is actually something that was done in the earlier days of the UFC). Now, I'm not saying that UFC and PRIDE and WEC and WFA and all the guys should sit around a campfire and sing Kumbaya, or that now is even the right time to acknowledge competition, but other organizations will start to make an impact. And when they do, we'll all be the better for it.

Vince McMahon was known for not acknowledging the history of wrestlers when they arrived in his group, no matter how big a name they were outside of it. Harley Race, Terry Funk, Dory Funk, Kerry Von Erich, and many more found most if not all of their history erased when they arrived in WWE. Because he was the biggest game in town, he felt it was bad business to acknowledge other groups, even if it was insulting to fans who knew better.

All that having been said, we saw a glimmer of hope with the attempted relationship with PRIDE, and the acquisition of Wanderlei Silva. While it fell apart, hopefully that trend continues once some promotions (hopefully including PRIDE themselves) start making names for themselves in the States.

UFC is a sport, and without promoting the competition, a great detail of where their non-UFC records are compiled would help make UFC feel more open with viewers and friendly to the community of organizations which White acknowledges develops fighters for eventual appearances on UFC if they're good enough.

VENUES

This is a big issue with me. I hate the atmosphere of a fight in a casino. Vince McMahon will be the first to tell you that he brought wrestling out of the smoke-filled carnival tents, although the fact is, he ran the same venues as the promoters who preceded him, only they enacted no-smoking policies during the time he began promoting shows. But McMahon doesn't like to bring that up.

Anyway, the time is coming where the UFC needs to do the same. For UFC, the analogy extends to casinos. Now, I know the owners of the UFC are casino owners, and they stand to make a whole lot of money by staging fights in the casinos they own, but having a crowd in the Pond or Staples Center who are there to cheer for the fight they like rather than the one they bet on makes for a better sports atmosphere. The whole atmosphere of celebrity and glitz at the casino arenas, filled with people there to be seen, takes away from how a fight night should feel, if you ask me.

This is an area where Dana could take a hint from Vince. Lower the ticket prices and expand the capacity of the venues that he frequents. Most real fans (not to say there are no real fans at UFC events in Vegas - Kevin James and Michael Clark Duncan come to mind) can't afford the huge price tag of a UFC ticket. When more people pay lower prices, you still make a lot of money. You'll also win over PPV fans for months to come as many people who attend a live UFC event may be compelled to order PPVs based on the good memory of seeing the show live.

So my vote is for more events in Anaheim, L.A. and Texas and New York and Philadelphia (if they can clearance there), and fewer in Vegas. Now and then is okay, but it should feel like a national promotion, not a Vegas sideshow.

CONCLUSION

So I'm not going to tell you that Dana White should or shouldn't adopt the personality characteristics and business tactics of Vince McMahon, but there are a few things to be learned about the way things should and shouldn't be done as the company continues to grow and expand. And from what we've seen so far with the evolution of the UFC, hopefully White will continue to prove that the company is in good hands.